


Consign Me Not to Darkness

by youwilllovemylaugh



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-13
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-11 18:36:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/801878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youwilllovemylaugh/pseuds/youwilllovemylaugh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean, Sam, and Cas are headed back from a botched job. Sam still hasn't fully recovered from the wall breaking, and a few trying situations have led the boys to believe that something more sinister is going on.</p><p>Title from "Broken Crown" by Mumford and Sons</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The boys set out again like always, the sound of the wheels of the Impala rolling along cracked pavement both new and familiar. It was an exhilarating combination even though it was overplayed, but Dean always compared it to Back in Black – it would never get old.

They were heading out of Butler, Pennsylvania, fresh off a job. It was past midnight – there wasn’t time to stop and sleep if they were going to be back at Bobby’s by morning. Sam was curled against the passenger window, his long legs tucked awkwardly under his chin and his hands balled in loose fists between his thighs and his chest. He slept fitfully, as always, his brow furrowed and his teeth clenched. When Sam looked like that, Dean couldn’t help but wonder if the hell dreams were still haunting him, if the delusions and the blurring of reality had only been the beginning of something much, much worse. He knew Sam wouldn’t tell him if anything else was going on – he would have to wait until something slipped, until the other shoe dropped and suddenly the contents of Sammy’s head were spilled out all over the floor of Bobby’s kitchen and all he could do was kneel in front of the puddle and try not to let tears fall out of his eyes.

He put the image away. There was no use in getting all worked up about something that probably wasn’t going to happen for a while. In the rearview mirror, Dean could see Cas sprawled out on the backseat, one leg propped on the left armrest and the other stretched out on the floor. His arms lay askew as well, one thrown over the headrest, the other flung across his stomach. He slept less fitfully than Sam, but somehow still as troubled. Dean didn’t know if angels dreamed, if they saw the horrible things he knew Sam did, or the things Dean saw in his own vivid nightmares. He hoped they couldn’t. He couldn’t imagine the kind of horrors a mind like Cas’s could conjure up, not after all he had seen.

Dean tore his eyes from the rearview. The road ahead was bound to be quiet – after a certain hour there were only truckers out on these roads, striving to make their due dates – and while there was ample time to zone out and think about all the things he thought Cas might dream up, he couldn’t afford to drive the Impala off the road by mistake. He had to focus as much as possible.

He took the 79 up to I-80, where it would be smooth sailing out west until they reached Des Moines. It was a drive he’d done a million times before – so many of their jobs were out there, in Ohio or Indiana, and they’d even done a few in Wisconsin and Michigan. Dean wished he could figure out a way to get the Impala’s odometer back in working order – after the demons flipped her back at Crowley’s hideout, the meter hadn’t been the same. If he had to guess, though, Dean would say there were easily half a million miles on her. At that realization, an absurd sort of pride rose up in his chest – the exact kind of pride that would bubble up when John used to pat him on the back, as rare an occasion that was. There weren’t many people who could say they had seen as much of the US as Dean had, as Sam had. He gave her a little more gas, fought the smile that tugged at his lips, pushed ahead of an eighteen-wheeler, took advantage of the swell of pride that filled the haunted cavern in his chest.

~ 

Dean kept driving until they stopped outside of Joliet, about seven hours in all. He leaned over the front seat to wake Cas first, with a gentle pat on his shoulder. The angel rose immediately, his blue eyes snapping open with the ease of a creature that didn’t really need to sleep, but did only out of habit.

“Morning,” Cas said, his voice pristine despite its disuse. He let his eyes rake over Dean, his rumpled shirt and his tattered jeans, his unshaven face.

“Morning,” Dean repeated, giving Cas a quizzical look. There had always been something off about Cas, something intense and unwavering about him that Dean couldn’t quite place – something that went deeper than his being an angel. It wasn’t unsettling, necessarily – over the course of the past three years, Dean had grown quite accustomed to Cas’s near-constant investigation of his body, of Cas’s indefatigable need to reassure himself that Dean was, in fact, okay. Or, rather, as okay as someone like Dean Winchester could really be. He brushed off the gaze with little more than a turn in the other direction.

He then leaned over to Sam, grabbed a fistful of his t-shirt, and shook him – Sam had never been a light sleeper, and the wall’s demise had done nothing to change that. Unlike Cas, Sam woke with a jolt, as if he had been stirred by one of the demons haunting his mind rather than his brother.

“Easy, Sammy,” Dean said calmly, keeping his hand on his brother’s shoulder, to steady him. Sam jerked upright then, and nearly bashed his head into Dean’s.  
“Where are we?” Sam asked, his voice loud and his eyes wild.

“Just outside of Joliet,” Dean explained, dread creeping over him, muting the pride he’d felt earlier. This wasn’t the first time this had happened – bringing Sammy out on the latest hunt was a bit of a risk, he knew, but Bobby had suggested it as a means of getting Sam acclimated to the real world again. Countless Internet resources had confirmed this idea. And after all the delusions, and the way Sam seemed unable to differentiate between the tangible universe and the one Lucifer had fashioned for him inside his mind, Dean couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do more than to ground Sam in the real world again.

But now he was having second thoughts.

“Sammy.” Dean shook his brother again, but Sam didn’t seem to recognize him anymore than he had a few seconds ago. Glancing at a worried Cas, he took Sam’s chin in his hand, made Sam look him in the eye.

“Sam,” Dean said firmly. “Do you know who we are?”

Sam didn’t answer right away. He pushed Dean’s hand away from his face, backed up as far against the door of the Impala as he could, and looked at both men in front of him with the eyes of a spooked horse. Dean’s heart was beating faster now than it had in recent memory – faster even than it had on the latest hunt. They were still so far from Sioux Falls, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to handle this without Bobby. Even though Cas was a huge comfort, there was no way anyone could substitute the kind of know-how Bobby had when it came to dealing with Sam.

And then, as if it had only been clouds shrouding Sam’s mind, the look of terror, of mistrust, on Sam’s face lifted. Clarity poured over his face like sun on a rain-soaked field. “Dean,” he said, breathless. His eyes trailed over to Cas, whose blue eyes were fraught with worry. “Castiel.”

Dean backed away from Sam slowly, nodding once to affirm his identity. “We’re stopping for now,” he said. “We’re in Joliet. ’Bout seven hours’ drive away from Bobby’s.”  
“Yeah, yeah, I know how far Joliet is from Sioux Falls,” Sam said, a defensive edge creeping into his voice.

Dean held his hands up in surrender, and got out of the car. Sam and Cas each followed suit, Sam avoiding Cas’s pointed look. They had parked in the dusty lot of a 24-hour diner, which was just starting to fill up with customers looking for breakfast.

They seated themselves in a booth not too far from the door, and promptly ordered three variations of omelets from a stumpy middle-aged woman wearing a fluffy pink apron. Once she left, an uncomfortable silence settled over them. Dean fiddled with a paper napkin, tearing the first ply into little shreds. Cas, seated beside Dean in the booth, twiddled his thumbs, shot Sam measured glances meant to cajole him into talking.

After the third time Sam caught Cas staring, he barked, “What?”

Dean looked up from the napkin, which he had torn into several small strips, and eyed his brother. “Sammy,” he warned.

“What?” Sam repeated. “He’s supposed to have some profound bond with you, not me.” He leaned back from the table and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I am only concerned about your well-being, Sam,” Cas replied, his blue eyes never leaving Sam’s face.

“There’s nothing to be concerned about,” Sam argued.

“Enough,” Dean said. Referee wasn’t his usual job – more often than not, he was the one fighting back an uncontrollable, pent-up rage. Clearly, however, that wasn’t going to be the case here – at least not until they reached Bobby’s.

The waitress approached with their breakfasts. Once she’d placed the omelets down and walked far enough out of earshot, Dean spoke again. “Whatever episode you just had in the car isn’t making me so keen on going out to pick dandelions all carefree, all right?” Dean picked up his fork and knife and started in on his omelet. Sam opened his mouth to speak again, but Dean pointed his fork at him. “I said that’s enough, Sam. Let’s just get through breakfast and get back out on the road. We’ll deal with it once we get to Sioux Falls.” He forked a bite of egg and cheese into his mouth with gusto. He was hungrier than he’d thought – they hadn’t been able to stop once since they left Butler without running the risk of catching up with cops.

Dean shook the memory of the job out of his mind – there wasn’t time to think about that now. There wasn’t time to think of anything but getting back on the road to Sioux Falls. He finished his omelet quickly, and downed his side of bacon in just a few bites. Fighting indigestion, ignoring Cas’s and Sam’s suspicious glances, Dean rose from the table and muttered something about using the bathroom.

He rounded the old-fashioned counter that guarded the kitchen, and locked himself in the one-unit bathroom. The room was hot and smelled worse than a stable in August, but Dean merely cringed before pulling out his phone and dialing Bobby’s hotline.

“Hello,” the older man droned into the phone.

“Bobby, hey,” Dean replied.

“What can I do you for?” Bobby asked, his old voice tired like well-worn leather.

Dean sighed. “We’re outside of Joliet,” he said, and the words weren’t quite what he wanted to say.

“Yeah,” Bobby said. “And? You said you’d be here ’round tonight anyway.”

“It’s not the drive that’s got me,” Dean said, an unwanted edge creeping into his voice.

“Then what is it, boy? Don’t you waste my time, I got three hits out from my feelers right now and I ain’t got time for no –”

“It’s Sam,” Dean barked, his frustration reaching a peak. He had never been good with talking about the things that worried him – John had always discouraged talking about the things they did and the problems they had, in favor of bottling them up. That way, when he drowned himself in whiskey, he could set the bottles on the ocean for someone else to deal with. For all intents and purposes, Dean had adopted these practices – he had been pilfering booze from his dad every chance he got since he was thirteen, and if they hadn’t had to book it out of Butler as fast as they had to last night, he probably would have stumbled out to some bar and debauched his way into forgetting all that Sam had been through.

But Bobby wanted to know. Bobby wanted to hear these things and he wanted to help Dean figure them out. And that meant having to talk about them.

There was a distinct shift in vibe from over the phone. “What about Sam?” Bobby asked, and his voice was skeptical and hesitant.

Dean leaned up against the grimy door of the bathroom. “I don’t know. He woke up this morning and had no idea of anything that was going on.” It was a lame explanation and he knew it, but he couldn’t bring himself to voice his suspicions without feeling like a wuss.

“That ain’t good,” Bobby drawled. “You’re out in Joliet now?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit. That’s pretty damn far.” He could hear Bobby pacing, the thick soles of his work boots pounding his worn wooden floors. “Did he say anything when he woke up?”

“Nothing peculiar. But he had this . . . this look in his eyes like he was about to go ape shit on us if we didn’t explain who we were.” He caught his tongue between his teeth, and then added, “It was like he didn’t trust us, or something.”

“That ain’t good,” Bobby said again, and Dean heard something creak on the other side of the line. “Where are you right now?”

“The bathroom of this diner in Joliet.”

“Get on the road as soon as you can. Get him here and try to keep him awake for the rest of the day. We’ll figure it out when y’all get here.”

Dean hung up. He pushed off the bathroom door and exited the tiny, foul-smelling room.

As he sat back down in the booth, he felt Sam’s and Cas’s eyes fall on him.

“What?” he asked. Both pairs of eyes lifted off him, and he hailed the waitress for the check. When they had paid, Dean said, “We’re heading out of here. Gotta get out to Bobby’s. There’s a gas station if you wanna grab something for the road, ’cause we’re not stopping again.”

Sam nodded, and Cas sat in silence beside him. They were used to going long distances. More often than not, when there weren’t any pressing jobs, they drove all day and didn’t stop until Dean’s eyelids started drooping.

They left the diner, and Sam veered off in the direction of the gas station.

“I’ll just be a second,” he said over his shoulder. Dean stopped a moment, catching Cas’s doubtful glance.

“What?” Dean asked, turning to face the angel head-on.

Cas watched as Sam walked into the gas station, his hulking frame disappearing behind the sticker-laden glass door. When the door had closed, Cas said, “I’m worried.”

“You don’t need to tell me twice,” Dean said, shifting on his feet, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “He’s gotten worse.”

“Yes,” Cas agreed. “But there is something even more sinister going on here.”

Dean regarded him with hard green eyes. “You think?”

“I believe he’s been affected on a level more deeper than you and I could have ever anticipated.”

Dean broke eye contact. He looked at his feet, at the gum-stained asphalt beneath them. “What makes you think that?” he asked, his voice quiet. He lifted his eyes and stared right back at Cas. “It’s not like he’s waking up with no idea who the hell we are, or where the hell he is.” He flung a hand out, gesturing toward the gas station.

“Yes. That’s bad, and –” Cas managed before Dean cut him off.

“No shit it’s bad, Cas,” Dean exclaimed, jutting out his jaw. His eyes grew wild with the rage he had never been able to tame, and without realizing it his nose was suddenly inches from the angel’s. He could count every line on Cas’s face, every hair out of place on his head. “He’s getting so lost inside his own head he can’t even tell which way is up.”

Without hesitation, Cas reached out and put a hand on Dean’s shoulder. His firm, reassuring grip was both expected and unprecedented – it was so rare that anyone touched Dean with any purpose other than to harm him that instantly knowing that he was safe in someone else’s grasp caught him off guard.

“Listen,” Cas commanded, and Dean was suddenly very compelled to hear the angel out. His cornflower blue eyes pleaded with Dean to calm down. “Once we get to Bobby’s, we can figure out what it is that went wrong.” The angel’s eyebrows knitted together in worry. “And I can’t . . . promise anything, but I might be able to help.”


	2. Chapter 2

They made it to Bobby’s in one fell swoop after that, thanks to Sam’s forethought. Dean pulled into Singer Salvage wired on the three different kinds of energy drinks he’d knocked back on an empty stomach.

His hands shook as he locked up the Impala, and he had to place both of his hands on her roof to steady himself before he tramped up the steps to Bobby’s house. Cas rushed over from the other side of the car the moment he saw Dean sway.

“Are you all right?” the angel asked, and a tentative hand stopped itself halfway from rubbing circles into Dean’s t-shirt-clad back.

Dean tilted his head to look at Cas. The angel’s blue eyes had clouded, and his brow had warped under his duress. It was an uncomfortable moment – there were so many times when it did not seem possible for Cas’s affection to be merely a part of his divine duties. He often seemed so genuinely concerned for Dean’s welfare that Dean sensed the angel would have given it all up years ago, long before he got into any of the business with Crowley or purgatory, or taking over heaven in God’s absence, if only it meant he could ensure Dean’s safety for the rest of his mortal life. And Dean was not sure if he was really worth that level of anyone’s concern.

He cleared his throat, and he felt Cas’s hand disappear from his back, leaving in its wake a terrible chill that only emphasized his warmth. In an odd way, Dean felt sorry for startling him. “I’m fine,” Dean sighed, and turned to face Cas, whose eyes still brooded and whose face appeared even more disheveled than usual. “I’m just a little tired.”

Cas nodded, his eyes full of understanding. “You’ve driven a long way.” They started up toward the house, where Sam was being let in. “Perhaps you should sleep a little before we proceed with what we talked about earlier.”

“No,” was Dean’s resounding answer. It was bad enough that he was desperate enough to let Cas help Sam, especially after the way Cas had betrayed them, and if Dean was going to take such a risk, he was going to do everything in his power to make sure it didn’t seem so damn risky to everyone else after the fact. “I’ll be fine.”

Cas looked at him, putting his hands in the pockets of his beat-up trench coat. “We’ll postpone the experiment,” he said. “We’ll just do it tomorrow.”

As they climbed the steps onto Bobby’s porch, Dean shot Cas a look. “I can’t afford to wait any longer. You and I both know that his fits are getting worse and worse by the day, and I don’t want to run the risk of waking up tomorrow and finding that Sam’s gone and run away with Lucifer again.”

The angel regarded Dean with the same, unwavering expression of extreme somberness. Dean hated that look. There was something incredibly condescending about being looked at as if you were a distant, tragic man with a distant, tragic story – it made him feel as if he were nothing but an inconsequential figment subsisting on the face of an even more inconsequential planet. It didn’t help to know that, usually, when Cas gave him that look, it was because Dean was busting his ass trying to save his stupid, inconsequential planet.

“It might be more effective if we did it while we are firing on all cylinders. All of us,” Cas emphasized. “We need to talk it over, anyway.”

Without another word, Dean stepped through the threshold of the house. The front door was propped by a silent, bewildered Bobby. As Cas entered the house, Bobby locked up behind him and drawled, “What bug crawled up your ass on the way here?”

Dean whipped around, but Cas spoke first.

“He’s tired. He just drove fifteen hours to get us here.”

Bobby nodded once, but he looked over at Dean once more to confirm the angel’s statement. “All right.” He gave Dean the once-over, and then hobbled into the kitchen, where Sam was already seated at the table, clutching his head.

Dean rushed over. “Are you okay?”

Sam lifted his head. His brown eyes, troubled as ever, met Dean’s. “We just drove fifteen hours in a day,” Sam explained. “I’m sorry if I have a bit of a migraine from all that time in the car.” He pushed his head back into his hands, ran his fingers through his long hair. It looked a little greasy, and before he could stop himself, Dean lamented not stopping overnight. It wasn’t like him and Sam to drive all night long and not stop – getting at least four solid hours was slowly becoming Dean’s only rule in life, and if he broke that one, he’d be too much of a free agent to be comfortable with himself anymore.

“You need to calm down,” Bobby said quietly from the kitchen counter.

Dean wanted to whirled around when Bobby spoke. He felt a little dangerous, a little out of control, and he wondered if it was because he was running on the fumes of three energy drinks, or if it was because he was entering that manic stage you do when you stay up for over twenty-four hours. Cas pulled out a chair for him and gestured, and he sat himself down.

A kettle Dean hadn’t noticed started whistling, and Bobby shut it off. He poured hot water into four different mugs, and Dean furrowed his brow.

“Since when do you drink tea?”

Bobby shrugged. “Them Brits are always clamorin’ on about how calming it is, so I figured I’d give it a try when you and Sam walked in here all wild-eyed.” He placed the four mugs in front of each chair, and beckoned for Castiel to sit down. When he had, and each man had sipped his tea, Bobby spoke again.

“Now, what exactly happened in Pennsylvania that you had to come jackassin’ up to mine like bats outta hell?”

Dean sighed. Sam rubbed his eyes. Cas sat with his hands wrapped around his mug, and stared into the folds of steam that wafted upwards. No one spoke for several seconds.

“Well, don’t all talk at once,” Bobby said. “It wasn’t our fault,” Sam said, immediately jumping to the defensive. He smiled ruefully at how quickly Sam always was to do that. It was what years of being John Winchester’s youngest son had taught him, no doubt. “Someone –”

Cas cut him off. “Someone died. A child.”

“He was seventeen,” Dean clarified.

“He’s still a kid,” Sam said loudly. “And he’s still dead because of us.”

“He’s not dead because of us,” Dean shouted. “He’s dead because he stepped in front of his girlfriend when we tried to shoot her.”

“Yes,” Sam said. “But we pulled the trigger. Actually, you pulled the trigger.”

“It was either that, or get ripped apart by a fucking axe-murdering ghost,” Dean replied. His voice was snide and his eyes looked pained. “Look, it happened, and we’re not going to go back there for anything anyway, so why does it matter if they’re dead?”

Sam curled his lip. “It’s not like they absolutely had to die.”

Before Dean could reply, Bobby cut in. “All right already. Christ. So they’re dead, and the ghost is gone, right?” Cas nodded. “What’s the big deal, then? It ain’t like you never killed anyone before.”

Dean looked at Sam, who closed his eyes. It was Cas who spoke first.

“Sam experienced a . . . momentary lapse of consciousness, and he –”  
  
Dean cut him off. “He flipped out on us and then went and told the goddamn police that there was a dead couple out in the woods.”  
An unsettled silence fell over the men at the square table. Cas watched Dean as Dean stared at his brother with hard, dark eyes. Sam did not look away from the pattern on the Formica table.

Bobby gulped his tea, and muttered something about it not working right. He cleared his throat. “So, you left town and came here?”

No one answered for a few seconds, and then Cas said, “Dean felt it was best to get out of town as quickly as possible. But, we had to get Sam out of the town square before anyone could recognize him, and that hindered our departure.”

“Half the fucking town saw us,” Dean said.

“It was after ten-thirty on a Wednesday in a sleepy little town,” Sam argued. “I’m sure there weren’t that many people out there.”

“A pretty substantial crowd gathered once you started screaming,” Cas said, and his voice was sad.

“It ain’t often that a sleepy little town has a crazy bastard screaming his head off in their fountain square,” Dean spat.

Sam’s face morphed into something vicious, and Cas stood up so quickly his chair slammed against the wall behind him.

“That’s enough,” Cas said calmly. “It’s been a long day. There’s no need to add more tension to the conflict.”

Both brothers sat back in their chairs and crossed their arms over their chests like little boys. Dean marveled at how quickly Cas had been able to quiet Sam – how with one look and a few words he could produce such an effect, even after all the powers of heaven had left him, even after he had nearly destroyed his vessel in search of something to replace that power. Nothing scarred him like it did Dean. Even as Dean looked at the angel’s face now, there wasn’t a single scratch. Not one of the horrid red burns or sear marks from when he’d swallowed all the souls in purgatory remained on his face.

That made Dean sad, in a strange way. It wasn’t like Cas was mortal, and it wasn’t like he really needed any ties to the corporeal world – he wasn’t from here in the first place. Even if Dean had come back from Hell almost four years ago with a whole new, flawless body, he liked knowing that he could still take off his shirt and trace the map of scars that accumulated on his body over the past few years. He could still see where he’d been and who he’d pissed off, and he could still tie himself to the real world, even under the most surreal circumstances. The memories of pain felt in the past and the recreation of that pain worked wonders to keep him grounded – and it worked for Sammy, too.

He wondered how much longer he could live while equating pain with feeling real. However long that would be, Dean knew he could last that way twice as long as Sam could. And that was why they were there. To buy them all more time, again.

Bobby broke the strained silence.

“Have you still been having those dreams?” he asked Sam, who, after shooting Dean a careful glance, nodded. “And those headaches?” Sam nodded again. “All right. I did a bit of diggin’ . . . some of that’s stuff we can’t do nothing about, like the headaches. You’re gonna have to deal with that as best you can. And as we all know from last time . . . there ain’t no lore about gettin’ your soul ripped outta you and then put back in.”

“So what are you telling me?” Dean said. “Is there really nothing we can do here?”

“Are you forgetting?” Cas asked then, and all three men looked up at him. He was still standing, and he focused his dark blue gaze on Dean, whose eyes lit up with comprehension.

“What’s that?” Bobby asked.

“Cas thinks he can help you,” Dean said, and he wondered just how recently Cas had discovered this ability. He remembered how, months ago, when the wall first broke in Sam’s mind, and even longer than that, when Sam had come back from Hell without his soul, and how both times Cas had simply said there was nothing he could do. It made Dean angry, but it made him suspicious, too.

“What?” Sam asked, but he continued before Cas could explain. “How long have you been hiding this?”

“I was only just able to recall the procedure,” Cas said. “The souls from purgatory may have taken more than just my strength.”

Dean rolled his eyes. It wasn’t a question that they had taken more than that – every day Dean could see a little something else that was different about Cas. Every day, he wished it wasn’t so obvious to him. But he also found himself largely unable to believe that Cas thought he could absolve himself of all blame in this situation.

“What are you thinkin’?” Bobby asked.

Cas paced around the table, until he was standing beside Dean on the other side. “It’s a very complicated process. It is an ancient recipe, involving several Enochian charms.” His voice was gravelly, and his eyes looked sunken. Dean wondered if, after nearly twenty-four hours of wakefulness, the angel was beginning to fade, too. He surveyed the faces of the men around him, each more exhausted than the last. “Perhaps we should discuss it more tomorrow.”

Bobby stood, and voiced his agreement. “I don’t think I’ve seen any of you look so damn tired in my life.”

“What’s this process involve?” Dean asked.

“There’s no lore on whatever he’s talkin’ about, if that’s what you mean,” Bobby said.

“There wouldn’t be any lore on the subject,” Cas interjected, “because it isn’t a procedure humans can accomplish on their own.”

Sam looked up at the angel. “What do you mean?”

Cas looked down at the table, thinking. “It’ll be complicated. The old myth suggests you can repair a soul with the grace of an angel.” He angled his eyes at Dean, whose face had gone white as a sheet.

“What are you talking about?” Dean demanded. His hands, which had crawled around his mug, gripped the ceramic so hard that his knuckles threatened to break through his skin.

“It would be dangerous,” Cas admitted.

“Dangerous?” Dean shouted. “Dangerous?” He laughed once and there wasn’t an ounce of mirth in the sound. “It’s fucking nuts, that’s what it is.” Dean knew, deep down, that he wasn’t built to bear the weight of losing both his brother and his best friend, two of the few people in this godforsaken world that knew him like no one else ever would, ever could. He would crumble in an instant, and he would leave Bobby in his wake, alone and miserable.

He couldn’t risk all that.

“It’s the only way,” Cas said, and the calmness in his voice was enough to make Dean fly to his feet.

“It can’t be the only way,” he growled. “There’s gotta be something else we can do. Anything.”

“There’s nothing,” Bobby assured him. “I’ve been looking all day long.” He stood and clapped Dean on the shoulder, saying, “Don’t get your panties in a twist, now. We’ll talk more in the morning about it all. I’m gonna go get your beds ready.” He left the kitchen.

No sooner than the words left his mouth did Dean turn to Castiel and shout, “No.” The angel gave each brother a look before turning and following Bobby out of the kitchen and upstairs.

Dean followed him. “You can’t do this,” he said.

Castiel whirled around so quickly Dean couldn’t stop fast enough. They ended up standing just inches from each other, their noses so close Dean could feel the angel’s heated breath on his lips. “I suggest you go to sleep, Dean. We can talk more about this in the morning.”

“Why is everyone insisting on treating me like a five-year-old?” Dean muttered, his fingernails digging into his palms. “Why can’t you just tell me why this is the way this has to happen?”

Bobby called down the stairs to tell them the beds were ready. When Sam entered the small living room, Cas and Dean stepped away from each other, suddenly repelled by the force of the other’s unwillingness to display intimacy. Sam didn’t notice.

Bobby came pounding down the stairs. “Not you,” he said, pointing at Sam. “Not after what Dean told me about your nightmares.”

Sam stopped midstride, confused. “What?” He turned to look at Dean, who turned his gaze away from his brother.

For the second time that day, clarity shone over Sam’s face. “You’re putting me downstairs?”

“It’s the safest place for you,” Bobby said, and he gestured toward the door in the kitchen, which led down to the panic room below the living room.

“And you’re just going to leave me down there all night?” Sam asked. He stared at each of the men around him, and then he sighed. Dean knew that Sam knew he couldn’t be trusted, not after he told the police about their murder, and not after all the dreams and the delusions. He was safer downstairs, even if it meant being strapped to a cold metal table in a dank, musty basement, forced to live out his painful delusions in sedentary solitude. It was, with any hope, only for one night, anyway.

“Fine,” Sam agreed, and he and Bobby descended the basement stairs.

As soon as they were out of range, Cas turned back to Dean.

“I would prefer it greatly if you got some sleep before we talked,” he said, and Dean met the angel’s navy eyes. “You’re not the same when you don’t sleep.”  
Dean, who had finally grown tired of hearing this same sentiment all night, caved in. “Fine.”

He went to move past Castiel, to head up the stairs and finally lay his weary body on the soft mattress that awaited him, but he felt a hand slip into his as he passed.  
Dean whirled around and saw Cas staring at him with a look that could only be described as possessing attachment.

“Thank you,” the angel said, and Dean watched as Cas rubbed his thumb over the back of his hand. The feeling was so strange, so eerily lovely and weird and wanted, that the only thing Dean could tell for certain was that he didn’t want it to stop.

“Let’s . . . go upstairs,” Dean managed. A newfound exhaustion had laid itself upon him, and he suddenly could not stand up any longer.

They ascended the stairs together, Cas’s hand still wrapped around Dean’s in a proprietary manner.


	3. Chapter 3

There were a few moments the next morning where Dean could not remember where he is. His head was foggy and he was uncomfortably warm beneath the blankets Cas had piled on top of him the night before, and the achy weight of his muscles told him he’d gotten more than his requisite four hours.

He rolled over in the twin bed he usually slept on when he was at Bobby’s, and instead of seeing Sam in the opposite bed, sprawled out over the mattress, his body just a little too big for it to be all that comfortable, the bed was made army-style, with the blankets and sheets folded back and wrapped around the thin mattress.

And beyond the closed door he heard, “We gotta wake him up, Cas. Stop bein’ ridiculous.”

And then the door burst open.

“Good,” said Bobby, who, standing in full dress, hat on, looked more worried than Dean had ever seen him before. “You’re awake.” Cas filed in behind him, his face drawn and his hands tucked into the pockets of his trench coat.

Dean threw back the covers and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He wasn’t wearing anything but his t-shirt and boxers, but he didn’t bother to hide himself. It wasn’t like Cas didn’t know what he looked like – after years of watching and traveling with Dean, he had to have developed a sort of acceptance for seeing Dean in various states of undress.

Briefly, it occurred to Dean that he had never seen Cas in any state of undress. He was always perfectly rumpled, and fully clothed. . . .

“What’s the matter?” Dean asked, his voice gruff and firm, to compensate for the thoughts running through his mind.

“It’s Sam,” Bobby said, and the little trapdoor in Dean’s chest fell open, sucking down the last shred of hope he’d had. “I went down there this morning to let him out, and I found him chewing on his own wrists.”

Dean’s stomach churned. “What?” he breathed. His head started to swim.

“I had to restrain him – he wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t listen to me, or nothin’.” Bobby paced the room a bit, and Cas came closer, his eyebrows knitted. “He ain’t himself.”

Dean stood up and reached for yesterday’s jeans.

“Where’re you going?” Bobby asked, as Dean took off out of the room.

He bounded down the stairs to the first floor, and then tore off to the basement, shouting “Sammy!” all the while.

When he got to the door to the panic room, he wrestled with the padlocks for a moment, trying desperately to get inside to Sam.

“Sam,” he called, when he had finally unlocked the last lock. “Sammy, please.”

But before he could yank open the door, he heard a deep growl come through the iron door.

“ _Dean. How lovely to hear your voice,_ ” Dean heard, and even though he knew it wasn’t his brother, even though he knew Sam had left his body and become something else, he pulled the door open anyway.

Strapped to the metal table lay his brother, his hands clenched in fists and his forearms wrapped in bloodied bandages. It looked like he had been struggling against his restraints, and the force of it had ripped open his wounds. Dean took a step toward him, but the minute he did, Sam let out a deep, guttural scream. He began to thrash around, his back arching unnaturally far and his face taut with pain. Dean watched as his brother writhed around on the table, stunned and afraid and angry, until finally Sam slammed back down onto the table and lay limp.

“Sam,” Dean moaned, and he rushed to his brother. “Sammy, come on.” He shook him, taking fistfuls of Sam’s flannel in his hands and pounding on his chest. “Come on, Sammy, wake up.”

“It’s better that he doesn’t,” Cas said, and Dean whipped around. He hadn’t heard Cas enter. “Whatever he’s seeing in there is causing him to seize.” He crossed the room and eased open Sam’s mouth. With lithe, ginger movements, Cas inserted a round piece of rubber into Sam’s mouth and closed it again.

Against his will, Dean felt tears prick behind his eyes. “Fuck,” he said, and his voice cracked, and he wanted to kick himself for sounding so pitiable.

“Dean,” Cas said softly, and moved toward him. Dean looked away, back at Sam’s closed eyes, his troubled face. He felt Cas’s hand on his back as soon as the first sob gripped his lungs. Cas’s hand rubbed circles into the space between Dean’s shoulder blades, and as Dean struggled to keep the tears back, he felt Cas lean over him and take hold of his hands. The angel’s firm, comforting grip on his hands slackened Dean’s grip on Sam’s shirt, until finally Cas was able to pull Dean up and embrace him.

“It’ll be okay,” Cas murmured into the whorl of Dean’s ear. Dean slumped down, rested his chin on Cas’s shoulder. He felt a tentative hand reach up, and brush the fine hairs on his neck once, twice, until Cas’s fingers rested there, warm, soft. His left thumb smoothed Dean’s hair, and his right hand rubbed the length of his back in long, gentle strokes.

It was so unusual for Dean to be this close to someone, unless he was going to kill them. And even then, it wasn’t like he was close to another _person_ – it was something _else_ , something _other_ – the enemy. Aside from a few accidental brushes against Sam in the small motel bathrooms they used, no one touched him. No one ran their hands through his hair, no one squeezed his shoulders. No one even shook his hand.

But this. This relaxed his muscles that had been tense for so long they no longer felt that way. This shut his eyes, which had stayed open and vigilant for years. This loosened the vice that he’d secured around his lungs, waiting for the other shoe to drop. This opened his fists, which he’d clenched in preparation for the never-ending fight for security. This melted the wall of ice he’d built around his heart, to protect against rogue arrows.

This made him feel safe again.

After a long moment that still seemed to end too soon, Cas pulled away. His hand moved around Dean’s neck, to cradle his jaw. Dean couldn’t help himself – he leaned into the angel’s palm, let his eyes flutter shut.

“We can fix this,” Cas said, his navy eyes locked on Dean’s face. “I know how to do it now.”

Dean opened his eyes. He hadn’t forgotten about Cas’s plan, not entirely. But he was sure a large part of him had wanted to.

“Cas,” he murmured. “I can’t let you do that.”

“He’s your brother, Dean. And he’s dying.” Slowly, Cas took his hand away from Dean’s face, and moved closer to Sam, who lay still on the table. He placed two fingers on Sam’s forehead between his eyebrows and closed his eyes. “I can feel it,” Cas said, and opened his eyes. “I can feel it here even without reaching in and examining his soul.”

Dean’s stomach clenched. “Fuck,” he muttered again. He started to pace, taking his unshaven chin between his thumb and index finger and letting his brain run wild.

He heard footsteps on the basement stairs, and in a few moments Bobby stood in the doorway of the panic room.

“We gotta do something, Dean. He can’t just sit here much longer.”

“Have you found anything?”

Bobby shook his head. “I’ve been up all night researchin’, and I can’t find nothing. Even some of the older Latin texts I dug up from Rufus’s old stash ain’t got a thing in ’em about soul repair.” He shot a tired look at Sam. “Or, whatever it is that he’s goin’ through.”

“It’s still his soul,” Cas said. “But it’s slowly infecting the rest of him, too.” He removed his hand from Sam’s forehead and paced around the table. “Lucifer is moving to different parts of Sam methodically, kind of like a cancer.”

Dean flinched. “And there’s not some kind of chemo we can rig him up to? There’s no spell or hoodoo or anything that we can do over him? Nothing?” The longer he talked, the more desperate his pleas became.

“There ain’t nothing,” Bobby said firmly, his gaze turned to stone. “Do you not trust me anymore, boy?”

“Of course I trust you,” Dean snapped back.

“Then _listen_ to me,” Bobby insisted, crossing the small room until he was facing Dean. “We don’t have another choice. You and Cas gotta go figure out what you need to do to get his angel’s grace out of him, and you need to do it quick.”

Dean opened his mouth to argue, but before he could get any words out, Sam began to struggle again. His body lurched, and with a single violent lunge, he spit out the rubber insert that immobilized his tongue. He lifted his head, and when he opened his eyes, Dean could see that their irises had turned red.

“Dean,” Sam drawled, his voice the same low growl as it was before. “How _lovely_ it is to see your face again.”

Dean and Bobby backed away from where they stood at the foot of Sam’s iron table.

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it, Dean?” Sam asked, his fixed on Dean’s. “You were in Hell almost four years ago, if I remember correctly.”

“Stop it,” Dean said.

“What? We had some good memories, didn’t we? You and I, watching your father be tortured over and over again?” Sam cocked his head, and a smile appeared on his lips. Even from feet away, Dean could see blood coating Sam’s teeth.

He lunged forward. “Shut up, ” he shouted, and he grabbed Sam’s shirt in his hands. “You shut the fuck up right now.”

“Easy, Dean,” Sam said, his eyes still red and his teeth still bared in a horrific smile. “Don’t want to get blood on you.”

As Sam finished speaking, sores appeared on his face, his neck, all over his hands. “Huh,” he said, looking down at his restrained hands. “Looks familiar, doesn’t it?”

“Dean,” said Cas. He appeared in front of Dean then, and wrapped his hands around Dean’s on Sam’s shirt. “Let go.”

“Oh,” Sam cooed, looking down on their joined hands. “Looks like _someone_ has a boyfriend.”  Dean let go of his brother’s shirt, and before Cas could speak, Dean reared back and punched his brother in the face, effectively knocking him out.

“Dean!” Bobby exclaimed from behind him. In a matter of seconds, Bobby had pulled Dean off of his brother and dragged him across the room. “Just what the hell d’you think you’re doing?”

Dean didn’t answer. Instead, he rubbed his sore knuckles and chewed on the inside of his lower lip.

“He ain’t your brother right now, if you hadn’t fuckin’ noticed,” Bobby said. “There ain’t no reason for you to go ape-shit all of a sudden.”

“Sedate him,” Dean ordered, looking at Cas. “I don’t want him to wake up any time soon.” He turned slowly out of the room and retreated to the kitchen, where he covered ice in a dishtowel and threw himself in a chair at the table. He held the ice to his swelling knuckles and sulked in silence.

Bobby came up the stairs and sat at the table.

“Listen,” Bobby said. “You don’t have a choice anymore. We don’t have time to fuck around. If Lucifer’s got that much control over Sam, we got about two days before we lose any chance we got of saving him. Now, if Cas has a plan, I don’t see why we don’t just go ahead and use it.”

“Because his plan can mean _suicide,_ ” Dean argued. “And I don’t feel like losing him if it doesn’t guarantee Sam’s life.”

“You’ll just have to take the risk,” Bobby insisted. “It’s the only shot in the dark you got of saving him in the first place.” Bobby leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. “And I know what you’re thinkin’, about Cas. I know why you don’t wanna lose him, and I know that you ain’t so keen on sacrificin’ Sam for him either, but you gotta make a choice. Stop being so thick-headed.”

They heard Cas’s footsteps on the basement stairs and fell silent. Bobby leaned back in the chair and stared at Dean.

“I’ve sedated him,” Cas announced, letting his eyes linger on Dean. “But we’ll need to get going this evening if we’re going to save Sam.”

As Dean looked away from Cas, he caught Bobby’s insistent, nagging eye. He sighed. “Where do we have to go, exactly?”

Bobby stood up and muttered something about having to make a call. Cas approached the table, his eyes cautious. “There’s a tornado due in Oklahoma tomorrow afternoon. If my calculations are correct, it will pass through Spearman at approximately 4:50 p.m. We’ll need to be there.”

“Why’s that?” Dean asked.

Cas pulled out a chair and sat at the table. “I need to stand in its eye.”

“What for?” Dean grumbled.

“It’s the only way to rip out my grace.”

“Yeah, and it’s a sure-as-hell way to kill yourself,” Dean said.

“Dean,” Cas said, his tone measured.

Dean leaned forward. “Don’t do this.”

“You need to let me do this,” Cas said.

“No,” Dean insisted, and for the second time today his voice cracked under the weight of everything he couldn’t say. “I can’t.” He averted his eyes. “I can’t let you.”

"Dean,” Cas said, and somehow Dean found his face between Cas’s gentle hands, his nose just inches from the angel’s. “Trust me.”

And before he could get out another word of protest, Cas leaned in and kissed Dean.

It was brief. But it was all Dean needed to know that Cas wouldn’t promise him anything that would hurt him. Cas pulled away and sat back in his chair, putting an ocean of distance between them.

He had kissed plenty of girls before – plenty of gorgeous women who’d made him feel a million different things, but nothing had ever quite made him feel like he did now. A tiny, tiny part of him revolted – he was straight, wasn’t he? Did it count if the subject of his affection was really a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent, and therefore didn’t really have a sex? Did either of their sexualities really matter at all? – but it was crushed under a wave of calm and intrigue and desire that Dean had never before felt with such intensity. He was filled with a brightness that was light as air and felt as glorious as warm sunlight after a long, rainy week. He was sure it radiated through his pores. It was suddenly all Dean could do not to lean over and kiss him again, no matter what the tiny parts of him said.

“We’ll leave tonight?” Cas asked. His navy eyes met Dean’s across the table and a wash of calm fell over Dean.

“Sure,” he murmured, and Cas smiled at him. 


	4. Chapter 4

Cas stood at the front door, a smile on his lips and two duffel bags at his feet, one blue, one white. Inside each, Dean knew, were the usual things they packed for a job: a few days’ worth of clothes, two wallets filled with various forms of identification under several different aliases, two wads of cash. And, in the inside pocket of the blue duffel, Dean knew there was a small vial, small enough to be strung on a leather thong and hung around his neck, small enough to be hidden under layers of clothing, and yet large enough to hold an angel’s grace.

“Are you ready?” Cas asked, and the knot in Dean’s stomach loosened a little. His voice was soft, and even though the sun hadn’t risen yet and only the dim yellow light from the porch lamp illuminated the small foyer, Dean could see the angel’s blue eyes gleaming from his place on the last stair.

“Is it bad if I don’t think I ever will be?” Dean replied, and to his embarrassment his voice was little more than a murmur – it was a quiet admission of fear so rare that Dean was surprised he even allowed himself to think the words at all.

The smile on Cas’s lips turned to a grimace, and Dean stepped off the last stair. He felt inexplicably weak, as if he had just recovered from an illness that had left him bedridden and jelly-muscled. There was a part of him that knew things wouldn’t go well – that somehow something would get botched and he’d be out a brother and a best friend. And then he’d have to return to South Dakota on his own, and he would have to face Bobby and tell him he’d failed. And then he’d have to go downstairs and. . . .

He didn’t want to think about what he’d have to do to Sammy.

Dean tuned back into the scene before him, and found himself staring straight into Cas’s eyes, which were now mere inches from his own. He could feel the angel’s breath brush his lips, tickle his cheeks.

“Cas,” Dean murmured, his insides twisting and screaming in pain. “What if –”

But Cas shook his head. His eyes flitted around, moving from one part of Dean’s face to another, to another, to another, until finally resting on his mouth.

“It will be okay,” Cas said then, and once again his eyes met Dean’s.

A pair of heavy-soled boots clunked down the hall, and in spite of them Dean felt his hands rise to grab Cas by the shoulders and his head tilt to the left. The boots got louder and louder, and in spite of them, Dean felt Cas’s hands reach up and caress his face.

Dean didn’t know what to do _._ When Cas touched him – hell, even when Cas _looked_ at him from across the room he felt his heart slow, and his palms stop sweating. He felt _calm_ , even though there was nothing about sexual tension that warranted feeling calm _._ That’s what it was, right? Harbored sexual tension? That was what made Cas stare at him, what made Dean constantly long to stroke Cas’s scruffy, world-weary face. Being unsure made him feel weird. Dean could tell what a girl thought of him in seconds – years of picking up chicks at random bars all across the country had taught him more than enough about eye contact, about body language. But this . . . was another animal. This was different. And there was no time to think about it – only time to accept it.

Which was really not as hard as Dean thought it would be.

The heavy-soled boots clunked down the hallway, and Dean sprang away from Cas, whose arms snapped back to his sides.

“You boys ready to go?” Bobby asked, giving each of them a parental once-over.

“Yes,” Cas said, and his voice had returned to its usual level of professional restraint – it was his soldier voice. Dean smiled sadly to himself. Cas was so black and white – he was either completely professional and stately, or he was mushy, lovelorn – and he transitioned between the two seamlessly. It was a spectacle, to Dean. A real feat of willpower. “I’m . . . going to put these items in the car.” Cas gestured toward the duffels, and then hefted them onto his shoulders and headed out the door, avoiding both Dean’s and Bobby’s eyes.

Bobby took a few steps forward, and Dean met his calculating gaze.

“You all right?” Bobby asked. “You look a little green around the gills.”

Dean took a step toward Bobby, a smirk curling his lips. “Well, I can’t say that I’m particularly fond of the idea of throwing my best friend into a tornado.” His eyes strayed into the other room idly, looking for somewhere safe to land.

“Just try to keep in mind that all this ain’t for naught,” Bobby said. “It’s to save your brother. Just focus on the positives, and don’t get distracted.”

Dean looked up at that. The older man’s words had been pointed and purposeful – and when Dean met his eyes, Bobby smirked.

'You know, you always think you’re so hard to read,” Bobby said, putting his hands on the waistband of his jeans. “But really, you ain’t. You’re just like everyone else.” The older man clapped a hand on Dean’s shoulder, took a step towards him. “Stop tryin’ to hold it all in all the time. It ain’t good for you.”

Dean met Bobby’s gaze with his own hard, green eyes. “What exactly are you trying to tell me?”

“You’re a mess, boy,” Bobby said, and his voice strained under what Dean thought was worry. He recoiled at that – he didn’t like it when people worried about him. He never knew what to do when other people tried to care about him, mostly because it usually meant explaining himself, or laying low when he needed to be out doing important things, like saving people, or hunting things. He liked it so much more when people ignored him, or treated him like shit, because it meant he could get on with what he needed to do, no questions asked.

And yet, Bobby stood before him with worry filling his eyes. He squeezed Dean’s shoulder once, just like John had done a million years ago, when he’d come home from a job and he found Sam asleep in bed and Dean getting into his pajamas, everything in their little motel room quiet and dark.

_Get to bed, Dean_ , John had said, and it was still the closest thing to a “thank you” Dean had ever heard his father utter.

_Fuck_ , Dean thought, as Bobby said, “I know it’s Sam’s life on the line here, but what about you? Don’t you ever take a second to calm the hell down?”

Dean gritted his teeth. He exhaled sharply through his nose and drew in a single, shaky breath. He knew he couldn’t answer. He knew that the second he opened his mouth he wouldn’t be able to shut it – and he feared what would come out.

So he breathed again. And again. And then he took a final shaky breath and said, “I have to go.”

Bobby looked at him a long moment. Before him was the face of the man who had watched him grow up, who had practically raised him in his father’s absence – even years after he stopped needing raising. Before him was the man who deserved to know everything Dean felt and more, and somehow, Dean couldn’t bring himself to say a damn thing.

“Do you want to say goodbye to Sam?” Bobby asked, and his voice was gruff and husky. His hand dropped from Dean’s shoulder.

Dean felt the wall that surrounded his heart start to build up again. Everything in him said not to go down there – if he did, he’d never leave. But somehow, he found himself nodding his head, casting tired, wary eyes on Bobby, who turned and led him down the stairs.

Dean waited as Bobby unlocked the padlocked chains that secured the iron panic room, his palms sweating and his teeth clenched, the knot in his stomach melding together. The heavy, reinforced door swung inward, and Bobby stepped in first, then held the door for Dean.

Sam lay on the metal table, hands balled up in fists. His eyes were wide open, but it didn’t seem that he could see anything out of them. Dean wondered if he was in pain, if he could feel anything at all. From what he knew of Lucifer, the fallen angel could fashion any kind of horrific torture with a mere twinge of the right neurons in Sam’s brain, with only the will to do it and a flick of his fingers.

“I had to sedate him again,” Bobby said. Dean didn’t take his eyes off his brother. “He started screamin’ about two hours ago.”

“Did he say anything?” Dean asked, and he moved closer to his brother. Sam’s face was twisted in pain, despite the drugs.

“Nothing intelligible. Screaming about some kind of soul-suckers, or something. He stopped making sense pretty quick into it.”

“Did he know who you were?” Dean asked, and the question was almost too much to bear. Sam’s face was immobile – in the few moments Dean had stood over him, not a single muscle had twitched, relaxed, or flexed. He wondered if, even after he was cured, and his soul had been repaired and his mind had been cleansed of the devil that threatened him, his face would rest in this place of pain, if it would remind them of what Sam had only just been able to overcome.

“I don’t think so,” Bobby admitted. “He’s gettin’ worse, for sure.” Dean heard the other man move closer, and then felt a hand clap him on the back, between his shoulder blades. “Which is why you gotta get out of here. And fast.”

Dean met Bobby’s gaze and nodded once, slowly. “I’m going,” he said, even though he didn’t want to. “I’m going,” he repeated, and he covered one of Sam’s fists in his hand. He tried to shove his thumb into Sam’s palm, to dig it into the scar that he’d used just weeks before to pull Sam back, but his fist was balled too tightly to budge any of his fingers. So he squeezed it, hard, until his knuckles turned white and tears burned his vision blurry.

And then he let go, and the walls around his heart sealed up, and he turned around feeling dead inside, with the void in his chest sucking the tears out of his eyes, the emotions out of his head. He needed to be level-headed, to operate lucidly, and he needed to do so for at least three more days.

But when he stepped over the threshold of the panic room and mounted the basement stairs, it was as if he was hopping over a barbed-wire fence in baggy clothing – a piece of him snagged. He would never leave this room, never leave his brother – not fully. There would always be a part of him that was irrevocably Sam’s.

~ ~ ~

They arrived in Spearman, Oklahoma around noon, and Dean pulled into the first dingy motel he could find. His eyes felt too big for their sockets – a result of having driven ten hours straight through the night, for the second time in less than a week – and he would have dropped down on the motel bed for some quick shuteye if it hadn’t been for the ravenous growling in his stomach that started almost two hours into the trip.

“Don’t you want to stop?” Cas had asked, turning a worried glance in Dean’s direction. He had sat in the passenger seat, which was strange to Dean – it was Sam’s seat, and Sam’s alone. It would always be that way, regardless of how he felt about Cas.

“We can stop when we get there,” Dean had replied tersely, and Cas had sighed.

“You’re angry,” he had said, and Dean had only sighed, swallowing hard and trying to focus on the road. That became difficult when he suddenly felt the back of Cas’s hand stroking his cheek, starting at his cheekbones and ending tenderly at his jaw. Once, twice, three times he stroked his face, and then his hand curled around his neck, and rubbed the fine hairs that grew there, massaged the muscles there, which were hard as if they were iron-clad, and then snuck up the nape of his neck to nuzzle his scalp.

“We have time for some food, you know,” Cas said, gesturing to the clock on the nightstand as he took off his trench coat. “You should eat.”

Dean, who sat with his hands folded between his spread knees on one of the beds, looked up at Cas. “I’m fine,” he lied, and as soon as he spoke, his stomach betrayed him, growling louder than it had all morning. The clock read only twelve-thirty, almost a full four hours before the tornado was due to hit. They would go down to the town water tower, right where the tornado was due to rip through, and Cas would go out into the field that lay adjacent. And the tornado would tear out his grace and Dean would have to catch it. The thought of chaining himself to the water tower, of blowing in the violent wind like a weather vane, of having to catch a part of Cas that wasn’t his, but which he had willingly given up – it all made Dean’s stomach churn.

Rain pattered on the lone dirty window in the corner, as it had almost the entire drive down from Sioux Falls. It further discouraged him from going anywhere, even though his stomach felt as if it was going to claw its way out of him through his belly button, even though the idea of staying in the dimly lit motel room made him feel more claustrophobic than the ten hours in the Impala had.

“Dean,” Cas said.

“I’m fine,” Dean insisted, even though his stomach argued audibly.

Cas look at him pointedly, and said, “I believe your body is disagreeing with you.”

“Why does this have to be an argument?” Dean asked irritably, frowning at Cas.

“Would you care to tell me why?” Cas replied. An edge crept into his voice. “You’re the one on a hunger strike.”

“It’s not worth all the trouble,” Dean argued, and his voice rose out of his control. “I’d rather –” His voice caught in his throat, and he was suddenly too embarrassed to talk.

“What?” Cas asked, and his mouth had flattened into a taut, annoyed line.

Dean looked sheepishly down at the floor. “I’d rather not waste our time trying to find somewhere to eat.”

At that, Cas moved toward him, slowly at first, and then aggressively. He continued to move even as Dean leaned back, unclasped his hands and fell back on the bed on his elbows. He had followed Dean’s movement backwards, falling into him so that he stood between Dean’s legs and was pressed against him from hip to torso. The angel’s face was only inches from his own, so close Dean could feel the heat of his breath on his lips, could see the desire that lurked in the deepest corner of Cas’s eyes.

“What are you doing?” Dean whispered, bewildered. Whatever chance of he’d thought he had of getting sympathy had completely evaporated. This was fucking weird. The kiss was different – it had been tender, comforting. Even though he had felt the burgeoning sexual tension that lay behind it, its wildness had been caged, locked in the same part of him that housed his fears and his despairs.

_This_ , though. This was terrifying, demanding, animalistic – this was unyielding and raw.

Cas didn’t answer him, though. Instead, he lowered himself even further, until Dean had eased onto his back on the bed, and then, with the tip of his nose, Cas began to trace a path from Dean’s collarbone to his chin, up the curve of his jaw and down to his upper lip, where he held his mouth suspended just an inch from Dean’s. His eyes roamed up Dean’s face until their gazes met.

“I thought you said you didn’t want to waste time?” Cas said, and clarity fell over Dean so quickly he couldn’t tilt his mouth up fast enough to meet Cas’s lips.

Dean pulled away after a minute, breathless and a little freaked. Cas had always been the one to kiss him, to touch him first. Looking at Cas, it appeared that he had realized this, too – he looked a little surprised by Dean’s forwardness. But Dean didn’t let that stop him. His mind was swimming with confusion and even a little panic, but he felt _good_ , and it had been so long since he’d felt anything this nice that he was completely disinclined to stop – why should he?

He unglued his hands from the motel bedspread and snaked them up Cas’s back, over his rumpled white button-down. He let one of them creep down, over the valley of the small of the angel’s back, over the curve of his ass. The other snuck up to his neck, into his shaggy hair. He brushed his thumb over Cas’s ear, and then leaned up and kissed him again, softly at first, closing his eyes and letting Cas melt under his touch, and then more urgently, massaging his ass and pressing himself upwards, into Cas’s body, until he started feeling resistance, and realized that Cas was responding.

Dean rolled him over, pinned him to the bed, as Cas slipped his hands under Dean’s shirt. Cas’s hands were warm and rough, callused from their work over the years. Dean craved their touch – the angel’s hands left a trail on his skin so hot Dean wondered if there would be marks on his skin later on. A little part of him hoped there would be – if this tornado killed the both of them, whoever found him would know to whom he belonged. That idea was intoxicating – it made him wonder if the rest of Cas’s body would do the same. He wanted to feel that pain, that intoxicating burn that matched all the fury, all the rage, all the sadness that he had packed away in small, neat vials and stored in the center of his chest and left to ferment.

He thought about how, in only a little more than four hours, he would have to take a small part of Cas and do the very same thing.

So he helped Cas pull his shirt up over his head, and then he ripped open the buttons on Cas’s shirt, and Dean slid his body against the angel’s and reveled in the burn of his skin. He moaned, but the sound only lasted for a moment before Cas covered Dean’s mouth with his own.

They continued in that manner, kissing and shedding layers, until they had stripped down to their boxers. And then, Cas rolled back over Dean and kissed him deeply, catching his bottom lip between his teeth, and then leaving a trail of kisses all the way down Dean’s stomach, until his mouth came to rest on his hips.

There, Cas’s mouth worked, kissing the same spot where Dean’s hipbone protruded from beneath the waistband of his boxers. It felt marvelous to be touched, to be kissed – and the more he tuned into that one spot, losing himself in moment, the bigger the bubble grew in his chest. And then he felt himself getting hard.

It made Cas stop, which was embarrassing. When Cas lifted his head, his lips were as red as the round little patch of skin on Dean’s hip. He looked over at the tent that had risen next to his head and smiled.

“Should I . . .” Cas asked, and his voice trailed off as he slipped his fingers under the waistband of Dean’s boxers, then turned his eyes back up to Dean, whose heart was beating so fast and hard he could hear it in his ears.

And then a noise came through the blood rushing in Dean’s ears, something loud and penetrating and . . . chirpy.

“Your phone is ringing,” Cas said finally, looking up from the red spot on Dean’s hip to his face. His navy blue eyes held a peculiar sort of sadness to them – half out of sheer despair for their situation, and half . . . in longing. Dean realized, as Cas’s eyes shifted absently away from his face that he was disappointed.

The little bubble that had inflated in his chest now burst at the thought of having disappointed Cas. The angel slipped off of him and began to redress. Dean stared, letting the phone ring twice more. He couldn’t please anybody – not Cas, not his father, not Bobby. Not Sam. And, judging by the tension in his fists and back and hips, he couldn’t even please himself. With the terrible phantom ache in his chest, he rose to a sitting position and answered his phone, while Cas disappeared into the bathroom.

“Hey, Bobby,” Dean said.

“How’s it going?” he asked, sounding nervous. “You guys are there already, aren’t you?”

Dean slipped into his jeans again, catching the phone between his ear and his shoulder. Bobby’s anxious tone didn’t get past him. “Yeah, we just got into the motel,” Dean said.

“All right, good, good,” Bobby said, and Dean frowned.

“You all right, Bobby?” he asked. “You sound a bit nervous about somethin’.”

Bobby sighed on the other side. “Look, son,” he started, and Dean bristled in spite of himself at Bobby’s use of the honorific, “your brother’s really sliding down a slippery slope up here. I don’t know what the hell’s happened in the last couple hours, but –”

He was stalling, Dean could tell, and that couldn’t mean anything good. “Spit it out, Bobby, this isn’t like you,” Dean growled into the phone.

“I’ve had to stop him from seizing six times in the last hour,” Bobby admitted, and the phantom ache in Dean’s chest was replaced by a real one, something that felt hard and firm and unlikely to burst as quickly as the little bubble of joy had. “I’ve got enough drugs to sedate him for about a day, but with the way his body keeps heatin’ up, he’s burnin’ through it all real fast. And I can’t leave him because then he’d run the risk of bitin’ his damn tongue off,” Bobby said quickly, and when he’d finished he took a deep breath in. Dean had never heard him so frazzled, and that worried him quite a bit.

“The tornado ain’t due to roll through until 4:50. What do you want me to do about that, go put a gun to Mother Nature’s head and tell her to speed things along? ’Cause we all know how well it went the last time we dealt with a Mother.” Dean shuddered at the thought of Eve, the Mother, who he’d only recently ganked and who, even more recently, had stopped haunting his fitful dreams.

“I don’t care what you gotta do,” Bobby snapped, even though Dean knew he knew fully well that there was nothing either of them could do just yet. “But you gotta get back here as fast as you damn well can.”

The line shut off, and Dean held the phone away from his head, looking bitterly at it as if it were the reason for the abrupt end to their conversation.

~ ~ ~

It wasn’t until Dean had dressed himself again, put the bed back in order, and pounded three beers that he knocked on the bathroom door. Cas had not come out, and a part of him had started to grow agitated by the angel’s absence.

“Cas,” he roared, a little louder than he’d wanted. He knocked once, twice, and then the door snapped open, and the angel’s face appeared in the doorway, hair tousled, necktie still untied, the first two buttons of his tattered white dress shirt left unbuttoned. He glared at Dean with his intense blue gaze, his mouth slightly open, his breath slow and silent. Dean had never felt more attracted to him than he did in that moment – and the alcohol certainly didn’t help this fact. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and run his hands through the angel’s hair, to kiss his damp, parted lips, to run his tongue down the length of his neck until he found the little curve where his collarbone dipped.

But the angel brushed past him without a second glance. He moved deliberately, to the bed first, where he put on his trench coat, tied on his shoes. Dean watched him from the bathroom door, arms crossed over his chest, smile half hidden on his face. He felt invincible, but it was a false feeling, the kind that always came after a few beers and the knowledge that, in the long run, he really had nothing to lose.

Cas finally turned around and faced Dean. He was careful not to betray any emotion on his face. “We should go,” he said solemnly, and Dean smirked.

“Should we?” he said, pushing off the door and walking slowly over to Cas. He approached him steadily, until he was only inches from him. Cas didn’t meet his gaze. He looked away, down and off to the side. His eyelashes were long and spiked with water, as if he had washed his face and they had not quite dried. Dean couldn’t remember hearing the faucet run.


End file.
